Welcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instalment. So come join us on our weekly foray into interconnectedness!
Spoiler warning: I will discuss plot points and revelations from all of Stranger Things‘ seasons, so be warned, or the mind flayer will get you.
This is not a takedown – it is, rather, a comment about how, sometimes, you don’t want to be surprised constantly by the plot of an interesting and entertaining series. Stranger Things is, in many ways, utterly predictable, at least if you look at the series sideways or even upside down (hah.) Let’s start with Will Byers’ supposed death in season 1. Did you really think he was dead? Not me. At a time when the series did not shock us with any kind of blood-curdling deaths, it was highly unlikely that Will would go first. Or did you think that the series would spare us with the sight of his remains? To a lesser degree, that goes for Jim Hopper, too, at the end of season 3. Did we see his dead body? No, we didn’t.
And I almost forget Dr Martin Brenner, who could have died more than once, but it’s still not clear if he is dead at the end of the fourth and so far latest season. Last but not least, Vecna’s state is unclear, but since Jamie Campbell Bower cheerfully gives interviews about what to expect for season 5, we all know what to expect, don’t we? The series would lose a pretty good baddie, and that cannot be, since demo-dogs don’t scare us like they used to, do they?
The series also has a not so well hidden law that characters who join in later seasons or episodes are more expendable than the original cast. Billy Hargrove joins the dark side against his will and only in the very last moment gets some kind of redemption. Max Mayfield survives Vecna’s attack only to fall into a coma. Both Max and Billy appeared only at the start of season two. The same goes for poor Bob Newby, superhero, and for Eddie Munson, who is not a Satanist in the least. And when I say that the original cast is not expendable, I mean it – the screenplay doesn’t give Will Byers much to do after the first two seasons, in both of which he simply fell prey to the upside down in different, but similar ways.
And El? She has powers to start with, always just enough to close the gap, and then, because the series needs to ramp up its violence and special effects, she needs to get stronger and more powerful since the respective main threat also ups its ante. And it’s only the other side of the same coin that, at some point where she conveniently exhausts herself, she loses her powers. That was bound to happen.
The list goes on: it’s always Joyce Byers who insists that she is right, while the others think she is crazy. It’s always Jim Hopper who does the shotgun-toting, politician-threatening heavy lifting. It’s Dustin Henderson who figures most things out. It’s Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington who has to watch the kids (although the kids are so tall by now that some of them are taller than him, despite the hair). It’s Nancy Wheeler who investigates things Nancy Drew style, and she even gets called that. And so on. Following that line, I fear for the lives of Erica and Robin, I really do.
As I said, this is not to reduce the series’ appeal. I really enjoy Stranger Things, and since I am old enough to recognize most references, there is a second layer that appeals to me – how many allusions, homages and references can the Duffer brothers bring into the frame? I like how the series uses its music. And what happens next? No more, no less.
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